♥ September Intro Mingle Log

[hugtopiamods]

September Intro Mingle Log
Welcome to Hugtopia, and to the city of Havenwell. This mingle is meant for new arrivals to get settled and meet the other inhabitants. New characters should be the only top-levels but everyone should feel free to tag around and make new friends. Who knows, you may find that Perfect Hug in here. You can use the prompts here, or create a wildcard of your own.

ICly, this takes place from the 2nd to the 16th and then we'll have a shiny new event post up for you all soon after that date range. The prompts below are optional, but are a way to get you started if you wish. To help you create your own prompts, please take a look through our Settings and FAQ. Click on each prompt's title to see the text. If you have any questions, feel free to direct them to the FAQ or to the Mod Question thread below.

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❥ PROMPT I: Awakening

When you awaken, you're in the last outfit you remember wearing, three of your belongings laid nearby or your animal friend curled up by you, waking as you do. It's not the most comfortable place to sleep, a stone slab, but once you're awake, a humanoid-looking robot comes in and explains you're in Havenwell and leads you out of the room and into the main portion of the temple where a welcoming committee of similarly humanoid-looking robots hand over a clear smartphone-sized tablet, some starting funds, and explain their dilemma. Then they release you into Havenwell to pick your new home from free housing in the city and give you the chance to settle. It might be a bit disorienting, but thankfully there seem to be a lot of robots and even some non-robots around. Maybe ask them for help?

❥ PROMPT II: Buddy System

With all the changes going on, it might be hard to be a new arrival to Havenwell. The natives understand! Sort of. When some new arrivals begin to appear at the temples, receive the welcome speech, get their communicators and the simple map of the city, they get taken to the front of the temple by a helpful robotic priest. Rather than turn the newcomers loose right away, they pull someone seemingly at random off the street and push the two people together with a cheerful, "Here's your guide to Havenwell! It's dangerous to go alone, so be buddies!" before going back inside.

They try to place a new arrival with one of those who previously arrived, but who can keep track of all that, right? Characters may find themselves thrown together with an actual veteran or with another new arrival who only came here a day or even just an hour before them! Good luck helping each other out, offworlders, and don't lose your buddy!

❥ PROMPT III: Weather Wildcard

Havenwell's weather is generally so well controlled, with beautiful blue skies and temperate climes that it's hard to remember that there's a whole world out there that might not be so nice. Every so often, however, the controls break and something not so nice and temperate comes through. Pockets of unpleasant weather happens all over the city at random intervals and new arrivals might find themselves and others caught without warning. Is that a snowstorm with green snow? Sure is. A windstorm that only seems to affect three streets? Yup. Did a deluge of rain just pour the equivalent of an Olympic sized swimming pool of water on you? Uh-huh, sure did. A deep cold fog that suddenly rolls in and blankets your entire area? Yeeaaah... hopefully there's someone around to help you get about and find shelter or just dry off and get away from it all. Good luck, offworlder.

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Comments

[astralera]

We've potions for healing and other various uses, but one primarily relies upon healing magicks. [ She seems equally bewildered. ] Perhaps your bodies are not comprised of your world's version of aether, and because ours are we can stimulate healing with our magicks?

[ At this point she doesn't seem to be entirely speaking to the man, but merely aloud, contemplating. ] But no... Then it should not have worked on anyone in Deerington, but it did... Though my curative magicks had turned into wound transference there rather than truly healing...

[scourgingstars]

[He didn't seem to like that concept at all, shifting uncomfortably and folding his hands behind his back.]

Perhaps it merely...operates differently. Surely the answer must be some fundamental and immaterial difference.

[astralera]

I would offer to heal a small cut upon your hand if you were willing to indulge, but... [ Era seems mildly uncomfortable. Though she has learned — unintentionally or not — that this man is infested by Darkness, and so it is only fair that she balance the ledger, so to speak. ]

I am to Light as you are to Darkness, so it may be somewhat... uncomfortable.

[scourgingstars]

N-no. [He quickly stepped back, as though the offer alone carried a myriad of problems.]

[So far as Ardyn knew, it very much did.]

Darkness and light are...complex things, where I come from. More than mere concepts, and the darkness over our star is a dangerous one. It would be better not to involve yourself with it.

[astralera]

I saw Light all but destroy a world, drowning the night sky in permanent Light for a hundred years, and spawning all manner of corrupt, aether-hungry beasts from the bodies of innocent people. An endless cycle of souls destroyed and malformed by something I once thought to be inherently good. [ She can't help the way that she shivers, remembering despite her efforts to remain distant from the memories... ] I have also seen the end result of a world destroyed by Darkness.

I am already involved with both Darkness and Light, and have been since the moment of my creation. If I had to claim a preference for one or the other at this moment it would be Darkness, though I would hope that you withhold that particular fact from the one called Emet-Selch.

[scourgingstars]

The plague which brings ruin to our world is not one of light, and only by light may it be banished.

[Or so he still assumed.]

Your alignment is not my concern, so long as you are no daemon yourself.

[astralera]

If it is a plague of Darkness then it is not Darkness itself to blame, but an imbalance. Light may banish it, but where is it being banished? Opposing elements can neutralize each other, if met with equal force, but not truly destroy. Regardless, if you do not know the source of the imbalance then it is liable to simply come back again.

[ She pauses at that; hesitant. ]

I know not what a daemon is, but if it is not touched by Light then I am assuredly not one.

[scourgingstars]

[Where is it being banished?]

[If Ardyn looked uncomfortable before, now he was starting to seem like he wanted the ground to open up and devour him immediately.]

You aren't.

oops right 5.0 spoilers here

[astralera]

[ Era can relate to that feeling, just a little. ]

...If one were to take the Darkness within themselves, containing it within their body and soul... Imagine if instead of Darkness it was Light — Light that sought to destroy your soul and twist your form into something monstrous.

[ There is that hesitance again, but she presses on. She hasn't shared these details before. It feels freeing, almost. A relief, in a way. Like the easing of a burden. To share with someone that she may in fact be a monster still, deep down. ]

I am not a daemon. Nor am I a Sin Eater, or a Lightwarden, however it is possible I am not... not those things. Even after expelling that monstrous Light from my body and soul, I cannot be certain some does not still linger here.

[ Her previously wounded hand is now raised to her shoulder, where she strokes the odd, faintly glowing weasel curled around her neck that has been largely hidden by a curtain of wavy brown curls. Era doesn't look at the stranger, but at her feet, and her tail has wound itself around her thigh. ]

Regardless of what I may be, or the Blessings I bear, I am Era. [ Hand still in place upon the small mustelid, Era offers a polite bow in greeting. ] Might I ask your name in return?

[scourgingstars]

[It was hard to pinpoint what part of that had set off Ardyn like it did. Was it being so thoroughly described in the wrong element? Was it the idea that someone else had done as he had, taking the suffering of another world upon a single individual's shoulders and suffering for it?]

[Or was it something as simple as a name?]

[Whatever the reason, Ardyn had frozen in place as if he were unable to comprehend what he was looking at, or indeed not seeing it whatsoever.]

[astralera]

[ Unsure of what she should do, since generally people acknowledge a greeting in one way or another, Era decides to just... wait... Still bowed, still staring at her feet. Though she does lift her head enough to glance at the man's legs, concerned. If she could lift her head enough to see his expression it would likely help, but it would also likely snap her neck if she attempted to in this positioning. ]

[scourgingstars]

A-

[Oh, is that a bit of wishful thinking? spoke a mockingly cheerful voice in Ardyn's head--a voice he knew well enough to know he didn't want to hear it. She's dead, and you've no one but yourself to blame for it. Are you really fool enough to think even for an instant that she's come back?]

[Be silent, Ardyn thought as he struggled to find his composure, I've heard enough from you. This wasn't a long-lost age, and this woman--whatever she was, she wasn't Aera.]

A...Ardyn. Ardyn Lucis Caelum.

[astralera]

[ She rights herself once he speaks, relieved that she did not ruin things as badly as she thought she may have. ]

Then my apologies, Ardyn Lucis Caelum, for burdening you with my words. And my thanks for listening to them. [ Era offers another small bow, though it is more just the slightest incline of her shoulders along with a brief bowing of her head. ]

...And I suppose I should apologize preemptively, for I'll likely mistake your identity again in the future, though I believe it won't take long to distinguish your Darkness from his.

[ And, speaking of Hades— She sighs, once more exasperated and fond. ]

Speaking of Emet-Selch, if you should find him bothering you in the future you are free to try distracting him by saying I am looking for him. If nothing else, it may shift the topic.

[scourgingstars]

Just-...merely 'Ardyn' is fine. I'm no one of consequence.

[At least, that was what he desperately wished was the truth.]

I will keep that in mind.

[astralera]

Then well met, Ardyn.

[ I'm no one of consequence. How often had she said those words herself over the past months? It's enough to bring the quirk of an honest smile to her lips.

She closes her eyes and feels for the next nearest beacon of Darkness, finding it mildly difficult with Ardyn's presence right there, almost obscuring. But she pinpoints... something in the distance, and so that is where she supposes 'home' must be. Perhaps one day she'll actually remember where that is. ]

I believe I know where to go now, and so I shall take my leave.